Con Law (34 page)

‘Not yet.’

She sighed. ‘Men.’

Their waitress was an authentic cowgirl attending Sul Ross on a ranch horse team scholarship. She wore a belt buckle the size of Montana.

‘I won that at a cutting horse competition,’ she said.

Carla ordered the jalapeño and cilantro soup and fried poblano chile rellenos stuffed with cream cheese, corn, and pepper served with a corn chowder; Book went for the tortilla soup and grilled salmon with Boursin cream sauce. Book took the sheriff’s advice and ordered the West Texas pecan pie for dessert; Carla had the Dutch Oven apple crisp with cajeta. And he placed Nadine’s to go order. They had already stopped and picked up her underwear.

‘So what brought you to Marfa?’ Book asked.

‘Fracking. That’s my mission in life, to stop fracking.’

‘Well, good to have something to do each day.’

‘Are you mocking me?’

‘No.’

‘Aren’t you passionate about your work?’

‘I am.’

‘Me, too. I’m a very passionate person.’ She gave him a coy look. ‘Who knows, if you play your cards right, you might find out how passionate.’

‘You want a beer? Or six?’

She smiled. ‘It’ll
take more than that, cowboy.’

‘Beers?’

‘Charm.’

The waitress brought glasses of water and buttermilk biscuits with pecans and soft butter. Carla held up the water glass.

‘That water,’ she said, ‘it’s from the Igneous Aquifer. That’s the aquifer Billy Bob’s punching through to frack.’

‘The aquifer Nathan thought he was contaminating?’

‘Yep.’

‘How do we prove it? The samples came back clean.’

‘They came back legal. The shocking thing about fracking isn’t what the industry does—shit, they thought it was brilliant to put diesel fuel down a well hole—but what’s legal. Between the trillions of gallons of drinking water used to frack the wells and the billions of gallons of toxic chemicals put down into the earth, ten years from now we’ll end up with lots of natural gas but no drinking water. Lots of jobs, but more people with cancer. Lots of energy, but more global warming …’

The waitress brought their dinners, but Carla was on a fracking roll.

‘Which is
so stupid when the answer is staring at us: green energy. Solar, wind, hydro. Over time, green energy would create a lot of jobs, too, and no cancer, no carbon footprint, no global warming, no groundwater contamination, no earthquakes. If the people knew the truth about fracking, they’d rise up against it. But the industry hires New York PR firms to run disinformation campaigns to confuse the public, same thing they did with cigarettes. They say steel-and-cement casing prevents groundwater contamination, but they don’t mention that the failure rate for casing is six percent immediately upon construction and fifty percent over thirty years. They say gases released into the air like benzene are safe, but they don’t mention that breast cancer rates spike among women living above frack fields. They say fracking’s been around for sixty years, but they don’t mention that the amount of chemicals and pressure down hole for horizontal fracking is way more than for those vertical wells drilled back then. They learned from the tobacco companies: lying works. And the media says, “Well, there’s a big debate about fracking.” And the people hear that and believe it. And as long as there’s a debate, the fracking continues …’

Which continued into dessert.

‘… And the industry touts the jobs. That’s the big sales pitch. Jobs. Jobs to keep the masses pacified. Politicians need to create jobs to get reelected, so they take the billion dollars a year the industry spends to lobby them and give the industry free rein to destroy the environment. Because politicians are inherently corrupt and evil. Like the goddamn oil and gas industry.’

Book listened attentively and ate the pecan pie then sipped his coffee throughout her impassioned plea. He had sat through many such pleas from environmental groups in Austin trying to save the springs, the river, the wilderness … but no one had brought more passion to the table than Carla Kent. She finally paused to take a breath; he waited to see if the lull were temporary or permanent. Her eyes danced with passion, which made her even more attractive. She drank her beer and smiled.

‘I’m done ranting.’

‘Good.’

‘I feel better now.’

‘Good.’

‘So, Professor,
how do you feel about sex after dinner?’

‘Good.’

‘Being gay in West Texas, that wasn’t an easy thing for Nathan. It’s a hard land with hard people.’

Brenda Jones knew about her husband’s double life. It was the next morning, and Book and Carla had stopped off at Brenda’s house to bring her up to date. They had called ahead; she had called Jimmy John. He wore his red jumpsuit; he had just gotten off the night shift. He recoiled when he saw Carla on the front porch.

‘We were more like brother and sister. Best friends. But I loved him, and he loved me, I know that. And we had been together since grade school, I couldn’t imagine living without him. He was a sweet man, Professor. He took good care of me. He would’ve been a great dad. He saw on TV that babies in the womb could hear voices, so every night at bedtime he’d put his head close to my belly and read children’s books to our baby.’

She looked down at her belly; when she looked up, her eyes were wet. She seemed to have aged ten years since Book had last seen her.

‘Brenda, are
you taking care of yourself?’

‘I can’t sleep without Nathan next to me.’

She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

‘After law school, he wanted to live in Austin, but I knew he’d have to face it every day, fighting his demons with so many gays there. Out here, there was no temptation. Until the artists came to town. I saw him weakening, and I knew he had given in to his demons.’

She paused.

‘Why would he choose them over me, Professor?’

‘Nathan didn’t choose to be gay any more than you chose not to be. That’s who he was. It’s hardwired, like your blue eyes. Brenda, he tried not to be himself for you. But he didn’t choose to be gay over you.’

She jerked and grabbed her belly.

‘Whoa, he kicked me hard. He must want out.’

She blew out a breath and pondered her belly a moment then looked up at him.

‘Professor, you don’t think he’ll be gay, too, do you?’

‘Brenda, he’s your son. You’ll love him no matter what he is.’

Book turned to Jimmy John.

‘Did you know?’

Jimmy John drank his beer then nodded. ‘I figured. He never said nothing, but he was different. I mean, he tried to be a regular guy, even played six-man football. But he wasn’t big, strong or fast.’

‘Not a good combination for football.’

‘Nope. And he was so damn pretty … not that I was attracted to him that way, I’m just saying. And those pictures he drew, never going to Boys’ Town down in Mexico with us, never went for the sheep—’

‘
Sheep
?’

‘Cowboy joke, Professor.’

‘It didn’t
matter to you?’

Jimmy John shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘He was the brother I never had. And he was the only person I could talk to.’

He paused, and his expression said his thoughts had gone to the past.

‘Back in high school, my mom cheated on my dad. With a Mexican. Everyone in town knew except my dad. All the other boys laughed at me. Except Nathan. He cried with me.’

‘He must’ve been a good friend.’

‘My best friend.’

Jimmy John Dale referred to gays as ‘queers,’ but his best friend was gay, and he knew it. Human beings were complicated creatures. And his former intern had led a complicated life. A complicated, short, double life. Book gazed at the wedding portrait on the wall and wondered about Nathan Jones’s life.

‘Heard about your intern,’ Jimmy John said. ‘She okay?’

‘A few broken bones, but she’ll mend. Jimmy John, you ever heard any rumors that Billy Bob uses cocaine?’

He thought a moment then nodded. ‘But no one on the rigs talks about it. We’re too scared.’

‘Of Billy Bob?’

‘That it might be true. It’s like you’re on a pro football team and the star quarterback’s a cokehead. He could take the whole team down with him. Is it true?’

‘I don’t know.’ Book turned to Brenda. ‘Did you find anything in the house that might be the proof Nathan said he had?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Anywhere else he might have put it?’

She turned her palms up. Book turned to Jimmy John.

‘Any idea?’

‘Sorry, Professor.’

‘I always gave my important stuff to my dad,’ Carla said.

‘His
obituary said his parents survived him. Where do they live?’

‘On a ranch west of Valentine.’

‘How far out?’

‘Forty-five miles.’

‘Thirty minutes by pickup,’ Jimmy John said. ‘Just past Prada Marfa.’

‘Back in oh-five,’ Carla said, ‘these two German artists named’—she read their names on the plaque—‘Elmgreen and Dragset, they thought this would be just about the funniest thing in the whole world, a Prada boutique in a ghost town. Locals never got the joke. Hence, the bullet holes.’

Valentine, Texas, qualifies as a ghost town. Only two hundred and seventeen lives play out there; the only thing the town has going for it is its name: every February, thousands of envelopes holding Valentine’s cards arrive at the tiny post office to be postmarked ‘Valentine, Texas.’ One mile west of town on Highway 90, sitting on the south side against a backdrop of cattle grazing on the yellow prairie grass, yucca plants, mesquite bushes, and a distant ridgeline silhouetted against the blue sky was a small white stucco building with plate glass windows (sporting several small bullet holes) under awnings and
Prada Marfa
printed across the front façade. Arranged on shelves and display stands inside were high heels and purses from the Prada Milano 2005 collection.

‘A fake Prada store,’ Book said. ‘In the middle of nowhere.’

‘The Jones ranch is a ways out,’ Book said.

‘Everything in West Texas is a ways out. You think we’ll learn anything from them? Nathan’s parents.’

‘Doubtful. But we’ve run down every other rabbit trail.’

A rocket suddenly rose into the sky in front of them.

‘Look at that,’ Book said.

‘Bezos,
the Amazon guy, he bought a couple hundred thousand acres over there, built a spaceport. Calls it “Blue Origin.” They’re testing rockets.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘Hey, we’re high-tech out here, Professor. We’ve got the Air Force’s Tethered Aerostat Radar site on Ninety—it’s a blimp-type craft, they put it up to detect drug planes and ground transports in the desert. We’ve got the Predator drones flying the river—they operate those out of the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. And we’ve got Bezos’s rockets.’

‘And modern art masterpieces.’

‘Is West Texas one crazy-ass place or what?’

‘In
Giant
, Bick Benedict puts his boy on a pony when he’s four, maybe five, kid starts wailing. That was Nathan. Hated horses and cows and manure. But I still loved him.’

Bill Jones blinked back tears.

‘He was your son.’

‘I wanted him to be a rancher, take over the spread. He wanted to be an artist. At least he became a lawyer. Reckon I’ll sell out to some rich Yankee like everyone else, move over to Fort Davis with all the other old folks. Play bingo.’

‘Maybe your grandson will want to be a rancher.’

‘You think?’

Nathan’s parents, Bill and Edna, had welcomed Book and Carla into their home on a cattle ranch outside Valentine. Their land comprised twenty sections—12,800 acres—of prairie grassland. The Joneses had ranched that land since after the Mexican–American War. On the wall of their living room were framed photos of Nathan as a boy, a young man, a new lawyer, and a new husband. Book wondered if they knew Nathan’s truth: his double life, his secrets, his art, his dreams. His unfulfilled life.

‘Professor, why do you care so much about my son?’

‘He saved my life, Mr. Jones.’

‘Nathan? He saved your life?’

‘Yes, sir. He
stepped between me and a bullet intended for me.’

‘His shoulder?’

Book nodded.

‘He told us that scar was because he tore his rotator cuff playing basketball.’

‘No, sir. That was because of a bullet.’

Mr. Jones seemed to stand a bit taller.

‘Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Nathan interned for me at UT law school four years ago. A week ago, he sent me this letter.’

Book handed the letter to Nathan’s parents and gave them time to read it. Edna cried; Bill handed the letter back to Book.

‘So you’re the professor?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘He said you’d come.’

‘Nathan told you I’d come to see him?’

‘No. To see us.’

‘You? Why?’

‘Because you’d want this.’

Bill Jones
held out a key.

Fort Davis is the county seat of Jeff Davis County, twenty-one miles north of Marfa. It’s a cute little mountain town filled with senior citizens, as if the American Association of Retired People had invaded the community. The key opened a safe deposit box in the First National Bank of Fort Davis. Inside was a clasp folder with a stack of papers six inches thick. Carla flipped through the papers.

‘Well logs,’ Carla said. ‘And Barnett Oil and Gas tax returns. This is it. Nathan’s proof.’

‘Of what?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s just numbers. I never was good with numbers.’

‘I know someone who is.’

Book and Carla walked into his intern’s hospital room and found her sitting up in bed and Jimmy John Dale in his red jumpsuit standing next to the bed. He had rolled up the right sleeve as if showing off his biceps.

‘Jimmy John?’ Book said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘He’s showing me where the horse bit him,’ Nadine said.

‘You drove
to Alpine to show my intern a horse bite?’

‘Oh, uh, no, Professor. I drove Brenda over here. Her water broke right after you left this morning. She had the baby.’

‘Are they both okay?’

‘Yep.’

Book dropped the papers from the safe deposit box on Nadine’s bed tray.